95.5 WPLJ

Date of Recording: April 11, 1991 Station: 95.5 WPLJ New York City, New York Featured Air Talent: Michael Scott Shannon Contributor: Tony Impieri Date of Contribution: 8.05.16 Aircheck Entry: 1,424 Comments: “Smells like a ZOO in here!!” Kicking off what would turn out to be a 22 year run, Scott Shannon starts his first show on WPLJ nearly word-for-word how he started the first show on crosstown Z100 in 1983! It all goes downhill from there! This was the start of “Mojo Radio”, the imaging sounding bold and attempting to put a fresh face on WPLJ’s CHR format. In fact, one of the imaging liners says, “we apologize for the last seven years…”. Shannon attempts to blow up what he called radio station WIMP – WIMP RADIO. Try to appreciate the ...

10/7/92 happens to be a Wednesday… a fact Scott Shannon points out right at the beginning of this high quality aircheck donated by Robyn Watts from her collection of tapes from California Aircheck. This one is from tape #152. We’ll give a plug to CA a bit further down by their request. The current WCBS-FM Morning man sounds a bit different on this tape than his more recent stuff. Part of that could be, first, that the tape is just a TAD slow. It makes all the difference sometimes, and with this temporary setup here at Airchexx, I can’t use all the tools at my disposal to fix the pitch without crashing this laptop. We will fix sometime down the road. Second, notice how Scott Shannon’s voice is good and strong here. Scott must be showing his age a bit these days, he s...

Another step in the evolution of WPLJ 95.5, at the time of this aircheck known as “Power 95”. For a time, ABC corporate actually changed the calls to WWPR, but it’s still ‘PLJ here. Notice the “WPLJ New York” Legal buried in a stopset. Jim Kerr is a capable morning jock, and this, thankfully, is still a time before high-powered morning shows with foul language and sexual innuendos. Kerr is entertaining and this is very much a music-oriented morning show. We’re sure you’ll enjoy hearing about the events of the day – two full newscasts are included along with New York City commercials of the day. This is in INCREDIBLE, STUDIO QUALITY…. It sounds good enough to have come right off the board, but we know this is off a perfectly tuned ...

From just their “second week workin’ together”, Scott Shannon and Todd Pettingill put on a hilarious morning show! The pairing that lasted almost 22 years here shows us why. This scope starts us off right in the middle of a talk break. Its sometime before 8:00 and the chemistry between our two hosts and the whole morning cast is evident right from the start. In the second break, John Gray is introduced as their special guest. Gray is the author of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, and our morning duo does a great interview. Its apparent that the interview is for Gray’s upcoming show at the Gershwin Theater. David Bowie is in New York to do a show this particular evening (so, perhaps this was a Friday night?) We get a full newscast from Naomi DeC...

There was a time when WPLJ was still playing Album Rock and a sleepy Beautiful Music station at 100.3 brought the airwaves of New York alive. Z-100 was born out of the creativity that Scott Shannon brought to New York, and ever since that day in 1983, he never stopped to smell the roses. After WHTZ, of course, Shannon went to 95.5 WPLJ, and the rest is history. Michael Scott Shannon, a personaltiy, program director, consultant, format creator and the voice of commercials and even radio shows like Sean Hannity, ‘retired’ from a 22 year gig as part of the Scott & Todd morning show on WPLJ. Most will remember his entrance into the ABC building all those years ago that seem like just yesterday, when WPLJ was turned into “MOJO Radio” in an effort to turn up the heat...

We have one other clip of Gregg Thunder here on airchexx.com which you can listen to, but before you do, listen now to a recording of the end of Gregg Thunder’s show and then the first hour or so, scoped, of course, of Domino, both on MusicRadio, WPLJ “Power 95”! We’ve been amazed at the marketing scheme of WPLJ during this era. Clearly, ABC corporate was torn as to whether to take 95.5 and turn it into a then-modern MusicRadio WABC (FM) or continue the way many FM CHRs were heading as this station tried desperately (and ultimately failed) to dethrone Z-100 from its perch as the number 1 hit music station in New York. One has to wonder… if the personality “MusicRadio” approach had been exploited fully instead of a sort of dual-identity CHR with ...

After WPLJ’s transition to CHR from AOR and prior to flipping to Hot AC, WPLJ was in direct CHR compeition with both WQHT and WHTZ, although the “Power 95” version of WPLJ was mixed a bit more hard-edged as the former two competitors, in the respect that on this aircheck in particular, there’s more hard rock than Z-100. Still, here is a station that STILL sounded great and very much in the game in the late 80s and early 90s. Listen now to Skyy Walker and Domino on Power 95 Another CHR WARS presentation from East Coast Airchecks courtesy of Robyn Watts!

Power 95 is solidly CHR, but not yet Mojo Radio. The jingles will remind you that 95.5 was once WABC-FM, and looking back listening to this, its obvious that ABC was in some way trying to re-create the MusicRadio 77 magic on FM. At least to some small degree. Willie B is heard on part of this, then its the syndicated “Party America” with Fast Jimi Roberts (unmistakably, Jim Roberts the mid-day guy on 98 1/2 WROR Boston during its Full Service AC days of 1980-81). At six minutes, we barely get a feel for the rhythm of WPLJ. But considering how hot Z100 was in 1986, its little wonder that later, WPLJ would woo Scott Shannon over to the ABC compound. And, the METS were playing the Red Sox in the World Series. Mets fever broke out everywhere and you can hear the promo that WPLJ did...

One of our most popular attractions has to be this fabulous montage put together and aired by Pat St. John. It’s been remastered and put to CD now – and we have it for you in it’s entirety. Courtesy of BigAppleAirchecks.

For those of you in a Summer kind of mood, here’s the HotAC version of 95.5 WPLJ as they play Classic Hits for the 4th of July holiday! Considering the position this station is in today, they couldn’t get away with it with WCBS-FM playing all these hits in rotation now, but in ’96 this was a big deal! WPLJ is one of those stations that’s just… there. Once WABC-FM in the 60s, WPLJ evolved into an early AOR and stayed there until late 1983 when it slowly evolved into CHR. It sounded great and for a time, even used some of the WABC Jam jingles resung for WPLJ. The CHR war evolved into a head on collision with CHR powerhouse WHTZ Z100, a war which WPLJ eventually lost. The station threw in the towel as a hit music station after it’s hottter-than-hell “...

WPLJ’s last try at the CHR format was this super-hot version of the format which lasted for a short period of time. Mojo Radio sounded great and gave crosstown Z100 a run for it’s money before flipping to HotAC. Here’s A.J. Hammer, a voice that fits right in with the format. Its a Friday afternoon, and there’s a Top 5 countdown that begins towards the end of this recording… you’ll hear number 4 before it ends. No jingles, but some hot sweepers! This station had potential…